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Dave Yoder/National Geographic(TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras) -- An expedition team of researchers has discovered the uncharted ruins of an unidentified culture's lost city in the heart of a Honduras rainforest.

The team ventured into the isolated, uninhabited area led by "long-standing rumors" it was the site of a fabled "White City" in the legend known as the "City of the Monkey God," National Geographic reported.

Expeditions to find the "White City," or "Ciudad Blanca," have been going on since the 1920s when explorers sought the mystical, Eden-like paradise described in indigenous stories as a place where natives were safe from Spanish conquistadors.

Legend had it that no one ever returns after getting there.

But the expedition team, made up of Americans and Hondurans, successfully returned from the site last Wednesday, National Geographic said.

Archaeologists surveyed and mapped the land that thrived a thousand years ago then vanished, and they discovered a large amount of stone sculptures that were untouched since the city was abandoned, the magazine added.

One of the most intriguing finds was what appeared to be the head of "a were-jaguar," showing a shaman in a spirit state, said Christopher Fisher, a Mesoamerican archaeologist on the team from Colorodo State University.

The team documented the artifacts at the site, but did not excavate them, National Geographic reported, adding that the location is not being revealed to protect the site from looters.

Archaeologists don't buy into the existence of one 'lost city' anymore, but do believe there are numerous lost cities that collectively represent something more important to them -- a lost civilization, the magazine added.

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- As you pack a bag for your next business trip or vacation, the security of the air traffic control system is probably the last thing you think about. But a new report from federal inspectors finds serious deficiencies that could compromise the safety of the flying public.

The 46-page report from the Government Accountability Office states that the Federal Aviation Administration hasn't done enough to ensure the security of the air traffic control infrastructure.

"While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has taken steps to protect its air traffic control systems from cyber-based and other threats, significant security control weaknesses remain, threatening the agency’s ability to ensure the safe and uninterrupted operation of the national airspace system (NAS)," it states.

"These include weaknesses in controls intended to prevent, limit, and detect unauthorized access to computer resources, such as controls for protecting system boundaries, identifying and authenticating users, authorizing users to access systems, encrypting sensitive data, and auditing and monitoring activity on FAA’s systems," the report continues.

The GAO lists 14 recommendations to reduce the risks to the security of the airspace system. Transportation officials say they are aware of the weaknesses but have been taking steps to improve security. They add that they will implement all of the recommendations in the GAO report.

Obtained by ABC News / Fair Use(NEW YORK) -- After being interrogated by Kuwaiti authorities, Jasem Emwazi is still reeling following the public identification of his son, Mohammed Emwazi, as the alleged cold-blooded ISIS executioner “Jihadi John,” the elder Emwazi’s attorney told ABC News Tuesday.

“He is in a state of shock from the story and needs time to deal with all the pressure from the media,” the attorney, Salem al-Hashash, said. Jasem Emwazi declined to comment to ABC News, the first Western news outlet to have met him since Mohammed was identified.

Al-Hashash said Jasem Emwazi was questioned by Kuwaiti authorities about his son for two or three hours, but was then released. He is not a suspect in activities related to his son, the attorney said.

Al-Hashash said only Mohammed Emwazi’s father was questioned and not his mother, as had been previously reported. Kuwaiti authorities told ABC News Monday Jasem Emwazi had said his wife quickly recognized her son as the alleged killer from the first beheading video when it emerged online in August. Al-Hashash declined to confirm or deny that allegation.

Mohammed Emwazi, publicly identified last week as “Jihadi John,” is believed to have appeared in at least seven ISIS execution videos, several times apparently taking a knife to ISIS’s victims himself.

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- “In this deadly 'Game of Thrones,' there is no place for America or for Israel. No place for Christians, Jews or Muslims...So when it comes to Iran or ISIS the enemy of your enemy is your enemy."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a jam-packed joint meeting of Congress Tuesday, telling lawmakers that the United States cannot afford to allow Iran to construct a nuclear bomb.

Netanyahu thanked lawmakers for decades of support and said Israelis were protected last summer from Hamas rocket attacks "because this Capitol Dome helped build our Iron Dome." He then turned to Iran, warning that "Iran's regime poses a great threat not only to Israel but also to the peace of the entire world."

Netanyahu called on Congress not to lift restrictions on Iran until Iran stops its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East, stops supporting terrorism around the world, and stops threatening to annihilate Israel.

"For over a year we've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal," he said. "Well this is a bad deal. A very bad deal. We're better off without it."

Netanyahu said Israel can defend itself and promised to act unilaterally against Iran if necessary, though he believes the U.S. would stand with Israel.

"As prime minister of Israel, I can promise you more than one thing: even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand," he said. "I know that Israel does not stand alone! I know that America stands with Israel!" he said. "My friends, may Israel and America always stand together, strong and resolute. May we neither fear nor dread the challenges ahead. May we face the future with confidence, strength and hope."

During his speech Tuesday, Netanyahu acknowledged his speech has been "subject of great controversy," but he said it was "never my intention" in accepting the invitation.

House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu to address Congress without consulting the White House or Congressional Democrats shortly after the president delivered his State of the Union address. Some Democrats complained that the invitation was inappropriate given the Israeli elections just two weeks away, and a deadline to strike a nuclear deal with Iran that looms at the end of the month.

Republicans however, contend that the invitation comes at a critical juncture in foreign policy.

“The prime minister’s address coincides with an increasingly aggressive Iranian campaign to expand its sphere of influence across the Middle East,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said Tuesday. “It represents a threat to both our countries. It represents a threat to moderate Sunni allies, and it represents a threat to the international community at large. That’s why Prime Minister Netanyahu is here today.”

ISAF via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Decorated war veteran and former CIA director David Petraeus has come to an agreement with federal prosecutors in which he would plead guilty to misdemeanor charges for mishandling classified information.

Specifically, the charges are improper retention of classified materials and obstruction of justice by allegedly making misleading statements to the FBI, sources familiar with the case told ABC News.

The charges stem, in part, from documents the former director allegedly provided to his mistress.

Following the agreement, the Justice Department issued a statement:

“Three documents – a criminal Information, a plea agreement, and a statement of facts – were filed today in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina’s Charlotte Division in the case of United States v. David Howell Petraeus. The criminal Information charges the defendant with one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. ... The plea agreement and corresponding statement of facts, both signed by the defendant, indicate that he will plead guilty to the one-count criminal Information."

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, dodged a bullet in 2012 when the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate. Wednesday, it faces a second major legal challenge; this one to the taxpayer-funded premium subsidies that underpin the entire law.

The nine justices will hear arguments over whether it’s legal to give out the subsidies in 34 states where the federal government established and runs the insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov.

The debate centers on interpretation of a four-word phrase buried in the 2,000-page law that says financial aid is available through “exchanges established by the state.”

The stakes are high: About 7.5 million Americans have received subsidies to purchase health insurance coverage in those 34 states.

If the court strikes them down, the “vast majority” will be forced out of coverage almost immediately because their premiums will become prohibitively expensive, experts say.

"There could be chaos," said Abbe Gluck, a Yale Law School professor who specializes in health law.

An average American receiving Obamacare subsidies pays just $105 a month out of pocket for insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Take away the aid and the cost spikes to $373 a month – for many, a price out of reach.

Experts are also sounding alarm bells about a broader impact: the upending of individual insurance markets and a likely “death spiral.” Premiums would skyrocket for everyone in those 34 states, not just those who purchased Obamacare, a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found.

And if you think the states, Congress or the Department of Health and Human Services could enact a quick, even temporary, fix, then think again. There has been little-to-no preparation for a court decision striking the subsidies down.

There will be just 25 days to look at those options after the court releases its opinion, which is expected in June, leaving precious little time for lawmakers and those relying on subsidized Obamacare insurance to act to come up with an alternative plan.

BlackBerry(BARCELONA) -- BlackBerry is hoping people shopping for a mid-market smartphone will take a leap on its latest device.

The Canadian company unveiled the BlackBerry Leap at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday, marking a shift from the traditional QWERTY phones that have come to define the device.

Geared to young professionals, the device boasts a 5-inch full touchscreen and a $275 price tag -- making it an ideal replacement for the mid-market touchscreen BlackBerry Z3 that was released last year but failed to gain traction among enterprise users.

Aside from the device's edge-to-edge touchscreen, BlackBerry is also playing up its mobility features that could make it attractive to the enterprise crowd. With more than 25 hours of battery life and the BlackBerry virtual assistant that was unveiled last year, the device can easily withstand a long workday.

"BlackBerry Leap was built specifically for mobile professionals who see their smartphone device as a powerful and durable productivity tool that also safeguards sensitive communications at all times," Ron Louks, president of devices and emerging solutions, said in a statement.

Underwood, 31, announced her pregnancy on Labor Day by posting a sweet picture with her dogs.

"In honor of "Labor" Day...Ace & Penny would like to make an announcement. Their parents couldn't be happier!" Underwood wrote.

The picture featured her two dogs wearing shirts that said they were going to be a big brother and big sister to a new baby.

A couple months later, Underwood's co-host at the Country Music Awards, Brad Paisley, let slip that she was having a baby boy.

Underwood later told ABC Radio that she'd planned to announce the baby's sex during the show all along, but she didn't let Paisley in on the secret until the very last minute.

"Brad's got loose lips. He's a blabbermouth!" Underwood said with a laugh. "So, I was like, 'I'm not gonna tell you until we're ready for the rest of the world to know, 'cause I know you'll tell people.'"

She and her husband both had a feeling they were having a baby boy, but had the doctor write down the baby's gender for them to look at when they were ready. They took the envelope containing the news of the baby's sex with them to a nice restaurant.

"[It was] just the two of us in a nicer setting, but we both knew," she said. "So, that was just confirming our suspicions. We didn't really speak of it before, 'cause we were both just like, 'Whatever. It's all good.' But we knew it was a boy."

Now, before you have a chance to do anything else, run down to your local IHOP.

The International House of Pancakes is giving away free pancakes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday, the 10th year that the chain has done so.

The free short stack (three total) of buttermilk pancakes are for dine-in only and come with no strings attached, but IHOP does ask that you donate to the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals or other local charities.

Clinton's team has confirmed that she used a personal email account for government business but maintained that it works within "both the letter and the spirit" of State Department rules, though the State Department, itself, has not commented on the matter.Did she have a government email account that she just didn't use?

The Times reported that she did not have an email account, which would have ended with a federal government domain -- in this case, state.gov.

Such emails are automatically stored on government servers and kept as federal records.What email account did she use instead?

While some guessed that she might be using a personalized email account at AOL or Hotmail, that was not the case.

Instead,The Washington Postreported, the domain "clintonemail.com" was registered the week before she was sworn in as secretary of state in 2009. Clinton's team has not confirmed that she used an email at that address.Is that legal?

There hasn't been enough information released yet to determine exactly what rules were broken, if any, but there are clear disclosure and security concerns.

Government email accounts have their messages automatically stored as part of the Federal Records Act, and while it's clear that Clinton's personal account would not have fallen under that umbrella, her team noted that much of her correspondence still was covered, as a result.

"For government business, she emailed them on their department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained," Clinton's spokesman Nick Merrill said in a statement.

However, as The Times noted, emails to accounts outside the U.S. government would not be covered by the same rules.Could that account have been hacked?

We don't know the extent of the security measures taken with her external account and whether they matched the measures taken by her colleagues who used government email accounts. Government accounts have their messages encrypted, for instance.Is she the first high-ranking government official to have done this?

According to her spokesman, no. He said that "secretaries of state before her" also used their own email accounts while "engaging with department officials." That response, however, does not say whether those secretaries of state used both government and private email accounts or just private email accounts like Clinton did, and it doesn't specify whether those secretaries of state were operating under earlier sets of rules governing government employees' email conduct.How was this discovered?

The New York Times reported that Clinton's use of a personal account was first discovered during a House committee's investigation into the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. However, the State Department apparently just handed over a selection of about 300 emails to the committee two weeks ago.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi Select Committee, issued a statement Tuesday morning saying that it has been known "for several years that Secretary Clinton used her personal email account, apparently following the pattern of previous secretaries of state."

On top of that, anyone who received an email from her after she took over the State Department in 2009 would have recognized at the time that they were receiving an email from a non-state.gov address.

Will this be an issue in the 2016 race?

To quote another famous female politician, you betcha. Though Clinton has not yet announced her candidacy, her likely opponent, Jeb Bush, has already slammed her secretive move, saying that it lacked transparency.

Obtained by ABC News(NEW YORK) -- For the first time Tuesday the world is hearing the voice of "Jihadi John" without the filters and digital effects used in the gruesome beheading videos -- and years before ISIS was even a well-known terrorist group.

The activist group CAGE posted online Tuesday a two-minute recording of Mohammed Emwazi describing what he claims was a run-in with an agent from Britain's MI-5, the U.K. equivalent to the FBI.

"While I'm packing my bags, this is while I'm packing some of my stuff, I said, 'Yea, go on, ask,' and he said, 'No, no, I'd like you to sit, face-to-face and we ask you these questions,' and I said, 'Wow, these must be some serious questions, let's get down to it,' I said," the 2009 recording says. "We sat down face-to-face and he looked at me and said, 'Mohammed,' 'Yes?' 'What do you think of 7/7?' I said, 'Man, what, innocent people have died, you know, what do you think? I think this is extremism.'"

7/7 refers refers to a coordinated terrorist attack on July 7, 2005 that killed dozens in London. The man identified in the recordings as Emwazi also says he's asked about 9/11.

"And I told him, 'This is a wrong thing. What happened was wrong, you know, what do you want me to say? If I have opportunities to make lives come back, I'd make those lives come back. I think what happened in wrong,'" the recording says.

CAGE previously said that Emwazi approached their organization after alleged harassment by British security officials in 2009 and had described such a meeting with a purported MI-5 agent when Emwazi was coming back from a failed trip to Tanzania. He had been detained upon arrival and sent back home, he claimed, because British intelligence was convinced he was really trying to go to Somalia to join jihadists there.

Four years later, after apparently being barred from moving to Kuwait, Emwazi slipped into Syria and eventually joined ISIS, which by then had grown out of the remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq to a brutal fighting force in the region.

A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to comment for this report, but it appears the slightly frustrated voice in the new audio would come to haunt U.S. security agencies years later as one of the few clues as to the masked "Jihadi John's" identity in a series of beheading videos.

In each of those videos, the masked man since identified as Emwazi gives an apparently digitally-altered monologue, at times directly addressing President Obama, before allegedly murdering civilian hostages.

The first video appeared in August, showing the death of American photojournalist James Foley. The next month, the FBI said it had identified Foley's alleged killer but kept the identity secret until last week, when it was revealed in Western media.

FBI(BOSTON) -- A jury was seated Tuesday in the trial of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect.

After the judge narrowed down a pool of nearly 1,400 people to 70, lawyers from each side selected 12 jurors and six alternates -- eight men and 10 women -- to hear the evidence against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Opening statements are slated to begin on Wednesday.

Prosecutors want the jury to see, among other things, panels of the boat where Tsarnaev was found and where he scrawled a message. Defense attorneys want the jury to see the whole boat.

Tsarnaev was captured inside the boat April 19, 2013, a day after he and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, allegedly executed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier and then led police on a high-speed chase in Watertown, Massachusetts that ended when the brothers allegedly exchanged bullets with police and tossed bombs in the street.

Tamerlan was killed in the firefight and Dzhokhar went on the run for 16 hours.

Days earlier, the brothers allegedly detonated two bombs made of pressure cookers near the finish line of the Boston Marathon April 15, 2013. The blasts killied three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and wounded 260 others. Many of the victims were maimed for life, including 16 people who lost limbs.

ABC/Rick Rowell(LOS ANGELES) -- When country music star Faith Hill hit the red carpet at the Academy Awards with a sleek, new pixie cut last month, fans were concerned when they spotted a scar on her neck.

“Faith Hill has quite the neck scar! Hope she's OK,” one supporter wrote, while another added: "Just saw Faith Hill on the Red Carpet. Anybody know what that big scar on her neck is from?”

Citing a source, People magazine has reported that the 47-year-old, five-time Grammy Award winner is recovering from neck surgery. The source told People that Hill, the wife of fellow country music star, Tim McGraw, had surgery in January to correct damage caused by an old injury.

Representatives for Hill confirmed the report to ABC News.

Patrick Gomez, a staff writer for People, said Hill has been dealing with this issue for some time. He also said the “This Kiss” singer first underwent surgery in 2011 to help alleviate issues related to an injury sustained years before.

Doctors say the procedure Hill underwent is called anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, and that it’s very common.

“We find it in elderly patients very frequently, but it can also occur in younger patients who have experienced some kind of trauma," said Dr. Joshua Bederson, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery for Mount Sinai Health System, who did not treat Hill. "It does occur spontaneously from time to time.”

"Since the neck is so mobile any kind of minor injury can lead to a herniated disc or compression of the nerves," Bederson said.

Hill, who has three children, isn’t speaking publicly about her recovery, but the surgery isn’t slowing her down. She attended several parties following her husband’s Oscar tribute to country music singer Glen Campbell.

"Faith has been going to physical therapy and the source says her recovery is going well and Faith is getting better and better," Gomez said.

ABC/Craig Sjodin(LOS ANGELES) -- The Bachelor: The Women Tell All special had it all on Monday night: heartfelt conversations, tears, and an onion.

The eliminated ladies from the current season of The Bachelor gathered to reflect on their romances with Chris Soules, and to revisit old feuds. The two finalists, Whitney and Becca, were not present.

Let's start with the bachelorette who was eliminated on last week's episode: Kaitlyn. She told host Chris Harrison she was confident heading into the rose ceremony in Bali, which is why she was so confused by her dismissal.

Later, Soules explained to her that he faced a difficult decision between the final three, comparing it to throwing darts at a dartboard. Kaitlyn wondered why he didn't give her the opportunity to chat privately before the ceremony, as he had with Becca. Soules agreed that in hindsight he should have done that, but he did the best he could at the time.

Jade, who was sent home during the hometown visits episode after revealing her Playboy past, also had the opportunity to speak directly with Soules. She was upset that Soules said it was awkward for him to look at her Playboy photos and video. He said he was being honest with her, and that her experience with Playboy was not the reason he let her go.

The Women Tell All was also highlighted by the return of the most polarizing contestants of the season, Kelsey and Britt.

Kelsey insisted that she was not trying to manipulate Soules or curry empathy from him when she referred to the loss of her husband as an "amazing" story, as she had been accused of doing by some of the other women. Kelsey also said she did not believe she was better than the other bachelorettes, despite how she was depicted on the show.

Kelsey mended fences somewhat with Ashley I., with whom she went on the two-on-one date in South Dakota that ended with both being eliminated. She conceded that she felt "raw anger" when she mocked Ashley during the date, and she apologized.

Britt cried early and often during Monday's special, mostly because of her interactions with Carly. She said Carly was friendly to her face during the season but was critical of her to Soules and to the cameras. Britt believed that if Carly had not meddled in her relationship with Soules, she would have remained in the competition.

In the strangest moment of the night, Harrison had a brief conversation with Ashley S., the bachelorette who mistook a pomegranate for an onion. She presented him with what she called a "hosting gift": an onion, naturally.

When asked if she had put on an act for the cameras during the season, she claimed she hadn't. An excited Harrison invited her to appear on the next season of Bachelor in Paradise, but he didn't get a straight answer from Ashley; instead, she stated, "It's so weird that we're on TV."

The Bachelor season ends next Monday night with Soules proposing to either Whitney or Becca...or perhaps neither of them.

“From this, Cap’n Crunch came to mind and in doing research, we found that Cap’n Crunch was a very popular brand with our consumers. We feel that this will appeal to what we call ‘kid-ults,’ or the ‘kid-adults’ out there,” she continued.

Taco Bell is currently testing the Delights at 26 restaurants in Bakersfield, California. They’re offering them in packs of two for $1, four for $1.69 and 12 for $4.49.

iStock/Thinktsock(NEW YORK) -- A winter storm is expected to bring substantial snowfall to parts of the Upper Midwest Tuesday, with a burst of snow slated to cover the East Coast in the afternoon and evening.

Winter weather advisories are out for parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin ahead of the March storm. In Chicago, the snow is expected to change to sleet then rain during the morning hours.

The winter-weary Northeast is bracing for more snow Tuesday. More than 100 inches of snow has fallen in Boston this season, the city less than 4 inches from surpassing the record set in the mid 1990's.

Boston could fall short of the record with Tuesday’s snowfall, but break the record with additional snowfall Wednesday night into Thursday morning.

While 1-3 inches is possible along the I-95 corridor Tuesday, some areas such as Philadelphia and New York City could receive 6-8 inches with Wednesday night’s snowfall.

Courtesy AfricaRice(OSLO, Norway) -- The first tree seeds that will be stored safely in a "doomsday" vault have been deposited on a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, more than 807 miles beyond the Arctic Circle, in mountainous permafrost, is the "world's largest secure seed storage vault."

The vault opened in February 2008 and crates of seeds are sent there "for safe and secure long-term storage in cold and dry rock vaults," according to a statement from the Norwegian government.

Seeds from Africa's largest collection of rice germplasm arrived in Oslo on Feb. 16, then were shipped to Svalbard where seeds were stored on the vault's shelves last week when the Seed Vault was opened, according to pan-African intergovernmental research association AfricaRice.

"The aim of back-up of our collection at Svalbard is to conserve viable African rice diversity forever and available for research for the next generation of scientists," Marie Noelle Ndjiondjop, head of AfricaRice genetic resources unit, told ABC News.

The first boxes of Nordic forest tree seeds (Norway spruce and Scots pine) were also stored in the vault.

In addition to conservation, the purpose of storing the seeds are to monitor changes in genetic diversity and breeding operations, according to the Norwegian government.

So far, 218 seed lots from the Norwegian Forest Seed Center have been selected for the Svalbard seed vault.

The oldest one, a pine sample from Tranøy in Norway, is from 1938, the government said.

The long term storage of forest tree seeds is done through Nordic cooperation involving Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway.

The vault has three separate rock vaults, 9.5 by 27 meters each.

"The seeds stored in the vault are packed in sealed bags inside sealed boxes, and are placed on high shelf racks inside the vault," according to the Norwegian government.

FBI(FALLS CHURCH, Va.) -- A gang of bank robbers dubbed the "Black Hat Bandits" struck again Monday, hitting a bank in Virginia, the eighth time this year, the FBI said.

But this time, the group may have left behind a key clue: possible footprints.

The two bank robbers -- known for donning black hats, winter coats, sunglasses, and some kind of facial disguise -- robbed a Wells Fargo Bank in Falls Church, Virginia, authorities said. Witnesses say they ordered everyone to the floor at gunpoint, shoving those who weren’t moving quickly enough.

A bystander called police from outside the bank, but by the time police arrived the pair had escaped, reportedly speeding off in a getaway car driven by a third suspect.

According to the FBI, the “Black Hat Bandits” have robbed eight banks since January, all in Maryland or Virginia.

In at least one case, they put a gun to a customer’s head.

In Monday’s robbery, authorities were able to preserve possible footprints in the snow using cardboard boxes, later casting a mold. Authorities are hopeful that the footprints will help them solve the case. The FBI is also offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the bank robbers.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Hillary Clinton used a personal email account exclusively while serving as secretary of state, and may have violated federal requirements,The New York Times reported late Monday. According to the Times, Clinton did not have a government email address during her four years at the State Department, and her aids took no action to preserve her emails – which is required by law under the Federal Records Act.

These new revelations raise questions about transparency, legality, and certainly security. It is not clear whether any encryption protection existed on her private email account, as is required on government emails.

Clinton's personal spokesman, Nick Merrill, issued a statement in response to the Times report.

"Like Secretaries of State before her, she used her own email account when engaging with any Department officials. For government business, she emailed them on their Department accounts, with every expectation they would be retained. When the Department asked former Secretaries last year for help ensuring their emails were in fact retained, we immediately said yes," the statement reads.

"Both the letter and spirit of the rules permitted State Department officials to use non-government email, as long as appropriate records were preserved. As a result of State¹s request for our help to make sure they in fact were, that is what happened here. As the Department stated, it is in the process of updating its record preservation policies to bring them in line with its retention responsibilities."

In an effort to comply with federal record-keeping laws, aides to the former secretary of state turned over 55,000 emails to the State Department two months ago, according to the Times report.

“The State Department has long had access to a wide array of Secretary Clinton’s records – including emails between her and Department officials with state.gov accounts. Last year, the Department sent a letter to representatives of former secretaries of state requesting they submit any records in their possession for proper preservation as part of our effort to continually improve our records preservation and management,” State Department Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf told ABC News in a statement early Tuesday. “In response to our request, Secretary Clinton provided the Department with emails spanning her time at the Department. After the State Department reviewed those emails, last month the State Department produced about 300 emails responsive to recent requests from the Select Committee.”

“From the moment that the Select Committee was created, the State Department has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the Committee’s many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the Committee’s hearings," the statement continued.

The State Department also says they are in the process of updating their records preservation policies to bring them up to speed with 2013 National Archives and Records Administration guidance. “These steps include regularly archiving all of Secretary Kerry’s emails to ensure that we are capturing all federal records,” Harf said.

Kerry is the first secretary of state to rely primarily on a state.gov email account.

The matter is expected to become a campaign issue. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a potential 2016 candidate for the White House, released more than 275,000 emails last month from his time as governor in the name of “transparency.” Bush tweeted late Monday “Transparency matters. Unclassified @HillaryClinton emails should be released. You can see mine, here. Jebbushemails.com.”

Senior administration officials declined to comment on whether any cabinet member or senior staffer operated without a government email address during the Obama administration. They also would not say whether White House officials corresponded with Clinton on her private email address on official business, or whether there were concerns about emailing a non-governmental account.